Keenan Lecture

Spalding University and the School of Liberal Arts is proud to welcome Reverend Dr. Wilson Dickinson, Director of the Doctor of Ministry and Continuing Education Programs at Lexington Theological Seminary, for the 41st Annual Keenan Lecture. Much of Dr. Wilson’s work has focused on social change and environmental justice as rooted in theology.

This Year’s Topic — Green Good News

Grassroots Christian Movements for Environmental Justice is a presentation that explores the mutually illuminating light that Jesus Christ and movements for environmental justice shed on one another. The stories of Christ provide both a practical path and hopeful vision for how to work for liberation in the midst of empire. Grassroots Christian movements for environmental justice, likewise, help us to root ancient stories in the soils of creation and everyday life. Together we will shed some new (green) light on some familiar passages from the Gospels and recount the prophetic memory of Fannie Lou Hamer and movements for agrarian reform in El Salvador. In doing so, we will reflect on the relevance of these practices and visions for our contexts in Kentucky to find green good news in the midst of our challenging times.

About the Speaker

Rev. Dr. Wilson Dickinson is “a theologian, organizer, and minister whose work takes place at the intersection of constructive theology, environmental justice, and social change. He approaches theology through traditions of liberative wisdom—integrating a wide range of disciplines from biblical studies, social history, practical theology, philosophy, social theory, and aesthetics and bringing them to bear on issues of everyday life, spiritual practice, community building, and cultivating movements for justice.”

About the Keenan Lecture

The Keenan Lecture was established in 1982 to honor the memory of Dr. Mary Emily Keenan, S.C.N. Her career in the fields of religious studies and classical languages was distinguished by fifty years of teaching at Spalding University, during twenty of which she served as chair of the Religious Studies Department. The Keenan Lecture is now sponsored by the Spalding University interdisciplinary School of Liberal Arts. The School of Liberal Arts is grateful to the friends and graduates of Spalding University, and in particular to those friends and students of Sister Mary Emily Keenan whose encouragement and support inspires and sustains this annual event.

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